


where the good ones go (when death strips their faces of colour)

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: even if it costs my life (I won't stop loving you) [8]
Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Death, F/M, I follow through with that promise, Memory Loss, Misunderstandings, Sad Ending, when I say I will fuck with all of your emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 16:32:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13907946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: There is a lifetime in which Héctor gives up. There is a world in which Héctor, after Imelda turns him away the first time, feels his heart break inside of his chest, but he respects her wishes more than anything else, so he stops. He stops wishing for her, stops trying to cross the bridge, stops trying, and it’s the hardest thing he’s ever had to do.---In the quiet night of Dia de Muertos, 2017, a boy arrives in the Land of the Dead. He doesn’t meet a too-old, too-young skeleton, doesn’t perform for the first time at a talent show in de la Cruz Circle, doesn’t escape past the first checkpoint. Without makeup to disguise himself, without a skeleton to guide him, he can’t make it far at all.





	where the good ones go (when death strips their faces of colour)

**Author's Note:**

> My natural angst tendencies really took over today, and even though I have a lot of feel-good stories saved for this series, this is the one I return with. I will get those done, but in the midtime...hope you guys like to suffer.

There is a lifetime in which Héctor gives up. There is a world in which Héctor, after Imelda turns him away the first time, feels his heart break inside of his chest, but he respects her wishes more than anything else, so he stops. He stops wishing for her, stops trying to cross the bridge, stops  _ trying _ , and it’s the hardest thing he’s ever had to do.

(He doesn’t understand why she won’t even speak to him, but he accepts her rejection. He  _ did  _ leave her and Coco. Imelda had to make a life without him, in a world where a single mother would be considered only barely above a  _ puta.) _

He contemplates leaving his ring on her window ledge, one night when she’s still at the shoe shop. She doesn't want him anymore. In the end, though, he can't bear to give up the last proof that his  _ familia  _ loved him once.

He lives in Shantytown, passes Dia de Muertos without attempting the bridge. He barely leaves Shantytown, not wanting Imelda to have to see him. The last thing in the world that he wants to do is cause her any more pain.

He never meets Frida, never earns Ceci’s grudging respect. He never makes an impact on three employees of the Department of Family Reunions. 

His  _ foto  _ wastes away inside of his jacket pocket, never used.

 

When he begins to Fade, he accepts it. He doesn't panic, doesn't struggle with it. All the fight has left him. He's ready to wait until the Final Death.

After all, there's nothing he's waiting for. When Coco dies, the only thing tethering him to this world will be gone, and thus he will be.

* * *

In the quiet night of Dia de Muertos, 2017, a boy arrives in the Land of the Dead. He doesn’t meet a too-old, too-young skeleton, doesn’t perform for the first time at a talent show in de la Cruz Circle, doesn’t escape past the first checkpoint. Without makeup to disguise himself, without a skeleton to guide him, he can’t make it far at all.

-

“Your great grandfather was a bad, bad man,” Mama Imelda tells him, “He  _ left us _ .”

“I  _ know that _ !” Miguel says, “But he just wanted to dream, to play music!”

“Héctor Rivera was a scoundrel!” Mama Imelda shouts, “A cheater, a  _ hijo de puta _ !”

Miguel’s jaw drops. “Who’s Héctor?”

“The  _ pendejo  _ who left us,” Mama Imelda says.

“But I thought-” Miguel’s words trip over themselves. “But I thought Ernesto de la Cruz-”

Mama Imelda sighs, shoulders folding in as a century-old fury melts from her bones, leaving only weariness behind. “Ernesto de la Cruz was that  _ pendejo _ ’s best friend,” she says. “He sent a letter, a few weeks after Héctor's final one. Said that Héctor had abandoned Coco and I for some  _ puta  _ he'd met. Héctor abandoned us, sold  _ our  _ songs to the world.”

“That  _ musico  _ abandoned us.  _ That's  _ why I don't want you to be a  _ musico _ , Miguel.”

\---

In a broken-down hut in Shantytown, Héctor’s body shudders and he collapses to the floor, clutching at his wedding ring. Gold covers his bones, and all he can think of is Imelda and Coco.

_ I’m sorry,  _ he thinks, eyes burning with the tears of a world long gone,  _ Lo siento mucho. I’m so sorry for leaving- _

\---

Later that year, when Mama Coco dies, Miguel finds her journal and her letters. He finds De La Cruz’s songs in the handwriting of a loving father, a man whose only wish is to return to his daughter.

Miguel sits in Mama Coco’s old chair, his heart breaking for a man he never knew. He wonders if Héctor is still in the Land of the Dead, if he Faded or not. He wonders what happened to Héctor, whether he really did cheat on Imelda or not. The man in these letters is nothing but loyal, nothing but in love with his wife and doting on his daughters.

 

When Miguel puts Héctor’s  _ foto  _ on the  _ ofrenda _ , he hopes the man will be able to cross over.

* * *

Ernesto de la Cruz plays on, selling out Sunrise Spectacular after Sunrise Spectacular. Frida Kahlo continues to make opening acts for de la Cruz, the music to them upbeat and energetic. Imelda continues to build her  _ familia  _ business, continues to resent the memory of her husband (when she thinks of him).

 

In Shantytown, an old guitar lies in between a hammock full of junk and a tub that, in another lifetime, held kegs of beer. The names Chicharron and Héctor are ones remembered only by those who live in Shantytown, and most of those people are quickly Fading. Soon enough, there will be no one left to remember the musician who loved his daughter and his wife with everything he had, who respected his wife’s wishes so much that he gave up trying to see his daughter.

Héctor Rivera is gone, and no  _ foto  _ can bring him back.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Where the Good Ones Go" by Danielle Ate the Sandwhich.


End file.
